Free Angelic Avenger by Kaye Chambers Page A

with their scales with the souls dumped at their feet by the other Reapers. I sighed and relaxed into the peace of this one. I don’t know how long I sat there before someone popped up to sit beside me. I smiled as I turned to face the blond angel with gilded wings.
    “Slumming, Raphael?”
    “You are always so mean to me, Arabella.” He sighed as he pouted prettily.
    The thing about archangels is that they manage to be gorgeous even when they’re in flaming fury. Having one pout at me was enough to turn me to total mush. Even I wasn’t immune to that kind of charm.
    “I love you, you know that. I only tease you because I can. To what do I owe this honor, oh Great Angel of Truth?”
    He rolled his eyes at his title even as he shrugged. Of all the archangels, he looked the youngest. In his current manifestation, he looked younger than I was, though I know he could look as old as Father Time, if he wanted to. This was the form that was his natural element, tall and swimmer thin, but still several inches shorter than his peers. Raphael liked to look personable to us lowly human types.
    “You were questing. I thought that intriguing enough to warrant a visit. You’ve been busy, lately, letting Orifiel talk you into meddling with his halfling daughter.”
    “There’s no law against it.” I squirmed in my seat under those golden eyes. Here I thought I was being sneaky only to have them all laughing behind my back. I should have known better.
    “No, but it’s made you question the life you’ve made for yourself down there. You live among them, but don’t have the connection to them that you’d like. Seeing the halflings has made you wonder if you’ve made the right decision in keeping yourself apart from humanity. You’re lonely.”
    I hate it when he’s always right. Having said that, he’d come to help me with my private issues because he’d felt my unease. Not very many people could say the Angel of Truth had sought you out to put your heart at rest with personal guidance. It was a pretty big boon.
    “So what do I do about it? I can’t get too close to them because they’ll notice certain things like…oh, I don’t know…the fact that three years from now, I’ll still look exactly the same, maybe?”
    “Why did you choose to return to the mortal plane?”
    I blinked and looked at him. Somehow, I’d expected him just to give me the answers without all the angel mumbo jumbo. My eyes narrowed with irritation and his smile widened with serenity. Damn angel.
    “Because I like it down there,” I snapped and slumped down in my seat as he continued to stare. “Okay, fine. I wanted to live, again. Up here—” I waved my hand to indicate which here I meant, “—it was entirely too serene and peaceful all the time. There’s no…life.”
    “Define life, then?”
    “
Life
.” I sighed in exasperation. “All the joy and action of living, I guess. I can stand in my window and watch Peachtree Street with the bustle and activity. I can go to dinner and watch young lovers go through the motions and giggle like there’s actually hope. I can go to concerts and plays and appreciate the performance. Here, I’d spend all my time wandering around waiting for someone to talk to me. There’s no purpose in that. I’d be a Jack Russell terrier in a day.”
    “So why haven’t you done all those things?”
    I blinked and looked at him. He was right. I went out every so often, but didn’t make a habit of it. I knew the shifters mostly because I had to patrol their communities to make sure they were living within the guidelines of the Covenants. They didn’t really talk to me or interact with me beyond the boundaries of politeness. Every so often, I’d arbitrate between the different groups, but in general, I was only called when it was a situation where I had to take a soul or do some other nasty dirty work.
    “I don’t know. Why haven’t I?” I couldn’t resist the question. It wasn’t every day I could